elementalwarre

dirtweasle: unit point costs do not change with ammo, special bonuses, fatigue, morale...oh well bullethead: i and others have repeatedly suggested various commands which, among other things, would enable grazing fire. BTS has said no just as repeatedly. i've given up on suggesting, but i still see grazing fire as a vital missing component, much more than various vehicles or units this has been puzzling at best. they seemed to listen to your artillery suggestions, at least for a CM II game engine if not necessarily for CM2 however, i'd swear grazing fire is one key advantage automatic direct fire weapons have over non-auto or semiauto. as you've pointed out, this isn't simply my opinion or yours. this is something which many auto weapons are specifically designed for and their doctrine explicitly describes. why BTS has repeatedly ignored or rejected this is, well, weird given their otherwise exceptional attention to accuracy BTS?

er. i must be especially dense today i can't find a 1.11 1.12? yah, works great if i don't close assault halftracks 1.1? downloaded that, no problem however, despite various people mentioning 1.11 in several threads, i can't find it at ftp.battlefront.com or anywhere else so am i missing something or did some people's fingers twitch?

i'd guess when CM's in stock again it'll have a manual current for 1.1.2 i'll second what aka_tom_w says, i'd pay for a 1.1.2 manual too. BTS could minimize piracy by sending only 1 copy per registered owner who buys one. however, i don't know if it's worth it for BTS to run an extra x many manuals since they'd have to guess how many. perhaps if BTS sent an email to registered owners? in the meantime, how about formatting all post-1.0 changes into the same organization as the manual and posting that somewhere? this doesn't take BTS, any of us could do it

cmbo works for me on that config, more or less. however, i run a stripped-down system folder with few third-party additions here's another opinion on mac os 9.1 (not mine since i'm biased): http://www.macfixit.com/reports/macos9.1.shtml

cavguy, would you comment on air-mech-strike's points in http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/012024-4.html? more precisely, air-mech-strike claims - tracked vs wheeled performance, reliability, etc has not been thoroughly tested - LAV is not sufficiently airmobile again, i'm a -civilian- US citizen with NO vested interest in any particular side of this. as close i get is wargames and active/reserve/retired friends in the military

perhaps battlefront could set up a FAQ forum where only BTS can post but anyone can search? perhaps each question/answer could be a different post so people can search on subject

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Heidman: The problem with saying that a Mac is faster than an Intel at like processor speeds is that the processor speeds are never, ever alike. A fast Intel is now running at 1.2-1.4 GHz. A fast G4 runs at 733 MHz, and costs more. That discrepancy is actually smaller right now than it has been in quite some time. I would like to see a comaprison of processing power per dollar. Jeff Heidman<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> no argument in those terms. i was just pointing out why griffin's g3/400 is picked vs his p2/450 although, you might be surprised what terms steve jobs can negotiate for chip prices. he's a -fierce- negotiator

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GriffinCheng+: Please note that the 'clock speed' is now a myth, it no longer determines how fast a system performs. Additional note, I have tried a number of tcp games between my P2-450 and PB and PB *always* do the calc and have better performance. It is just a little G3-400 w/ 64MB RAM plus a lamely ATI MobileRage 128 (and it is also on a number of Pentium notebooks) where my P2-450 has 128MB RAM, Wide SCSI-2 HDD plus a o/c GeForce DDR. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> warning, pedantry ahead: i wouldn't call clock speed a myth any more than 64-bit's a myth. it's just that neither tidbit's enough by itself to figure out system throughput, and which tidbits you care about depend on what you do anyway CM's looking for which system has faster main processor floating-point performance since that's a big bottleneck when figuring out a turn's action. that means the video card's irrelevant - it's figuring out unit vectors, visibility levels, shot results, etc that takes time, so what matters is the system's performance on CPU-intensive floating point ops powerpc chips have always had better floating point performance compared to intel(-compatible) chips at the same speed. even though g3's really a 603 design on steroids, it still rips through floating point calcs. g4's even better; it can be 4x or more faster than g3 for some FP or vector operations

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Heidman: I just thought that the Expo was rather funny, especially after some other Mac faithful told me about how Jobs anounced all this technology that was "2-3 years ahead of anything in the PC world". Then I watched the Expo myself. Jeff Heidman<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> 2-3 years ahead? (scratches head, -really- puzzled look) various mac things are good, but i dunno about 2-3 years ahead well...maybe the mac guys who said that don't get out much

just to try to head off a possible flamefest - i actually started writing unix and dos/windows software before getting into mac software in 1989. i may work at apple, but at home i use and write for windows, linux and macs

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Heidman: If you want to get a Mac, Steve Jobs just anounced their brand new systems. They have all sorts of technology that is 2-3 years ahead of anything available in the PC world. Things like 4X AGP, CD-RW drives, and 733 MGHz processors! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> what jobs actually announced at january san francisco macworld: - dvd-rw drives for a surprisingly low price - 733 mhz g4 processors with better floating point performance than any intel(-compatible) chip. besides, cpu clock only helps so much. after about 4:1 ratio for cpu:bus speed, cache misses make your faster cpu increasingly less useful - nvidia geforce video cards standard for most minitower macs and optional on low-end minitowers as for 4x agp and 133 mhz system bus - at least with these apple is no longer behind as always, macs cost a premium - or not, depending on how much you value ease of use

you might also try the after action reports posted on CMHQ. fionn kelly in particular puts quite a bit of info in those reports, IMHO very useful since fionn's -extremely- good

ah, what matt said. i'm just pointing out that people need not install opengl 1.2.1 if they have mac os 9.1 the update is at http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11904

mac os 9.1 was posted online when san francisco macworld started. it's also on all shipping imac, ibook, powerbook g4 and desktop g4 models in a slightly updated form. it's available as update for mac os 9 users. it has ATI video software which fixes the blacked-out text problems mac users were seeing that has to be the most low-profile mac os release i've ever worked on. nonetheless, it's more stable, faster, and more energy-efficient than mac os 9.0. the tech note will be done shortly mac os 9.1 update is at http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11904 [This message has been edited by elementalwarre (edited 01-12-2001).]

mac os 9.1 was posted online when san francisco macworld started. it's also on all shipping imac, ibook, powerbook g4 and desktop g4 models in a slightly updated form. it's available as update for mac os 9 users. it has ATI video software which fixes the blacked-out text problems mac users were seeing that has to be the most low-profile mac os release i've ever worked on. nonetheless, it's more stable, faster, and more energy-efficient than mac os 9.0. the tech note will be done shortly

TacAI dithering: i assume this is from TacAI deciding something's the best target one moment and turning towards it, then reevaluating the next moment because floating point and real terrain means which target is technically nearest can change each moment if the targets and/or the tank are moving if so, is this kind of fudge factor possible: if the unit's current target needs no more time to start firing at than the other target, -continue on the current target-. perhaps also maneuver to avoid the other, but kill THIS target first perhaps the fudge factor exists and could be tweaked, or other problems happen if the factor's too big, or this just isn't common enough to spend programming and simulation time on, or this is intentionally meant to simulate a gunner cracking under pressure. i dunno. i'm just suggesting. BTS? although, has anyone seen a tank hull rotating one way as the turret goes the other? a movie of that would have me ROTFLMAO even if it was my tank hull turn by AI: perhaps TacAI could consider where's the opponent map edge. i'm not for or against this, just suggesting. 1.1's behavior in this respect is just fine by me no doubt these have been thought of. i haven't seen them in this thread though, so i'd like to know more before i say more [This message has been edited by elementalwarre (edited 01-11-2001).]

CM 1.1 runs just fine on the powerbook g4 i tried FWIW - pismo is powerbook g3 (firewire), not powerbook g4. pismo runs CM very nicely at 1024 x 768, aka max screen resolution powerbook g4 max screen res is 1152 x 768

about realism: yeah, a real commander can't get precise terrain info OTOH, a real commander isn't looking at graphics acting like real terrain, ie they get much better resolution i think CMBO does an acceptable compromise right now, so here's a vote for no change

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MantaRay: And since many games before CM simulated Cold War USSR vs. the US, what is the big deal with a WWII era matching? AFAIK, we never fought with them in any era.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> in 1918 the US, UK, and france sent forces into the russian civil war against the communists just an historical fyi as far as morality goes - THIS IS A GAME. it does not glorify war or any country in WW2 any more than any wargame does. if you see it as a sim, enjoy. if not, enjoy. strictly a personal choice and yes, i think allowing US vs USSR would be fun, but i'd rather see BTS do the historical games they've outlined. anything more than that is up to hackers my $0.02 on whether any side vs any side is nontrivially more work: yes it is in CMBO, only germans get bunkers. only allies get air support - sporadically and sometimes it supports the germans, but it does happen . no side needs to factor the chance of their opponent using the same gear and possibly similar insignia, thus affecting IFF. the list goes on, but the point is that these simplifications limit not just code but also drastically limit the number of test cases FWIW i've written some nontrivial commercial end user software, so hopefully i've an informed opinion

schrullenhaft's mostly right - ati radeon software will not fix this - ati software bundled with opengl 1.2.1 will fix this - a disk image of opengl 1.2.1 is part of cro-mag rally demo 1.0.2, which is 40M as i said in forum thread 12650, anyone is welcome to ask me for the ati files to avoid waiting for 40M to straggle onto their system i've been emailing people to get opengl 1.2.1 posted by apple, but no luck yet john, aka mac os integration engineer

of course i like many of the choices already mentioned, just thought i'd add a couple: - peacekeepers, 1997 canadian movie - peacekeepers, 1999 english miniseries both are about peacekeeper troops in what used to be yugoslavia. the canadians patrol a village, while the english are a humanitarian mission. neither is exactly happy-go-lucky but IMHO the english one superbly illustrates how tough a humanitarian mission can be on the troops oddly enough i saw one on bravo channel and the other on bbs america, both on the same weekend. haven't found either on tape or dvd though anyone else have better luck? [This message has been edited by elementalwarre (edited 12-04-2000).]

one line from that review reads: 'Enemy paratroopers will land wide of the mark, letting you pick them off with ease' all right BTS, you've been holding out on us. what's the secret key combo to see this? i can't believe you kept this for yourselves and a select group of friends

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by air_mech_strike: - US army chief of staff shinseki wants to change the US army to be more rapidly deployable, with more firepower once it arrives. good, but it still looks like the marines are the first to go. are they? NOT TRUE. The U.S. Army's XVIII Airborne corps is the first to fight, arriving ANYWHERE in the world in hours, as proven in Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Desert Shield... The marines only have a mere battalion afloat in 3 different oceans and are hardly capable of being the first to any conflict unless already stationed there beforehand. The days of keeping men packed like sardines for 6 months at a time in ships that leave visible wakes, targeted from space or even from unsophisticated terrorists are rapidly coming to a close (USS Cole?). America needs SIGNIFICANT sized forces (Brigades and larger) that can deploy by AIR in a world that moves by AIR. Spit shines, hubris and lying about your history will not change the fact that your sea-based organization is obsolete for warfighting. As a taxi service for the state department to evacuate U.S. nationals permissively, marines are ok, though overpriced.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> easy there. i'm just asking. i'm a civilian, no service bias need apply! when i talk about first, i mean first with a combined arms force - artillery, AFVs, infantry, etc -, air power, and logistical support. the US 18th at least used to be a relatively light force, primarily infantry. would you send the 18th into a conflict with, say, israel, or any other heavily-armed, well-trained opponent? i am -not- knocking the 18th. it's a very effective force. i -am- suggesting it may not be as all-around capable as a marine task force if there is some water-based access

check the gear a given team/squad carries as well as number of men. the times i paid attention it made sense. have you seen discrepancies even accounting for weapons & ammo?

oh yeah - for various reasons apple often listens more to users than to its employees so if you'd like to see opengl 1.2.1 posted to an apple website, by all means tell apple tech support: 1 800 767 2775 [This message has been edited by elementalwarre (edited 11-28-2000).]